Hans Christian Andersen

“The Little Mermaid” and “The Ugly Duckling,” “The Golden Heart Flower” and “The New King’s Clothes” are just a mere few of the rich body of work of Hans Christian Andersen. Andersen was born in 1805 in a poor neighborhood in Udense, Denmark, to a father who was a shoe repairer and to a mother who was a laundry woman. Andersen began working at an early age to support the family, and at the age of 14 moved to Copenhagen to become an actor. In 1833 he traveled Europe and made put his travel impressions on paper. In 1835 he published his first work, The Improvisatore (Improvisatoren), an autobiographical novel which described a child who comes from a background of poverty and enters the gates of society. With his success, Andersen began publishing his children’s tales every year at Christmas, and the last volume was published on Christmas Day in 1872. The same year Andersen was seriously injured after falling out of bed. In 1875 Andersen died at the age of seventy.